The flame rolls around her knife, silent in its snapping and hissing. Looming over them is a large, rusty diving helmet which flickers in the dim light as the rest of its body dissolves into darkness.
Nami and Chopper scream at the top of their lungs, and she's lunging forward, deafened and driven by the pure need to stab.
"Now that's dangerous, little lady!" A large glove grabs her wrist before she can get in close.
Twisting out of the hold, she drops the knife, and the blade clatters to the floor, burning harmlessly but leaving all but their feet in darkness. Someone pulls her back as Chopper, in Heavy Point form, tackles Edwin away from her.
"The knife!" Nami shouts before clicking together her Clima-Tact with whispered curses.
With the way the metal corridor echoes and groans, it's nearly impossible to fight in the pitch dark. She dives for the still burning knife only to roll away at the last second when a large boot slams down in front of it.
"Playing with knives is not what good girls do. Time for a time out!" A tinny voice screeches, punctuated by static.
The floor gives a terrible shudder before lurching as if bending under an unseen pressure. Metallic shrieks fade into an all consuming white noise. Her brain feels like it's liquifying at the sound.
Something furry slams into her with a yelp—definitely Chopper, back in his smaller form—and Nami is thrown into her next with a hiss. She can't seem to lift her arm to shove them off of her.
"It's not just the diving suit that is attacking us," Robin warns, voice hard to hear over the white noise.
She's losing strength for some reason. There's a pressure gluing her to the floor which seems to be shaking apart. Her lungs struggle to work, and it's all so overwhelming—
"Kuina, what are you doing?"
The sudden voice of her father causes her pencil to jerk, leaving an unwanted, deep line across the paper. She huffs and begins erasing, but she already knows it's futile.
"Drawing a map," she says irritably.
"And what will you do with this map?" Her father's arms disappear into his sleeves.
"It'll show me the world."
With a scowl, she grabs another sheet of paper and starts over again. Sadly, the map she's copying from is too big to trace, and it's a very bare one at that. The details have to be filled in from other books and maps.
"Perhaps your efforts are best placed somewhere else. The world cannot be seen by just a piece of paper," her father says.
"Then I'll go see it for myself."
"It is a bitterly harsh world out there. Rarely is there ever a kind fate for a woman by herself."
Her father sounds so sad that it makes her look up. His expression is as tranquil as always. She wonders if she imagined it.
"I'll be strong enough that I'll be fine," she says with confidence.
"Kuina, girls don't grow up to be—"
She bites the inside of her mouth so hard that she tastes blood. Eyes popping wide open, the first thing she sees is dirty, blue tile. A tiny crab walks by her face.
"Hey! You awake now?" A loud, tinny voice shouts somewhere above her.
She's lying in a puddle of water. Something doesn't feel right when she pushes herself up, but there's no time to think about it. She looks around with unease.
Tiny drains litter the floor of the large, tiled room, and a single nozzle hangs on the wall. It's definitely a sight she's seen before.
She reaches up to touch her head on reflex. Her fingers press against wet bandages, but nothing is sticky or painful. She's fine; it's probably just water.
The bandages do confirm that she's not simply experiencing déjà vu. She glances over her shoulder and frowns. The fact that she's missing something important helps too.
"Edwin," she growls out.
"Now, now, darlin'. Ain't nobody gonna hurt you. Come on down to the livin' quarters, and we'll get you something dry to wear."
The big, heavy door across the room swings open. The loud, metallic shrieks are far more bearable this time around.
"I'm not playing this game, Edwin," she snaps out. "Where are the others? Where are my wings?"
The sound of static greets her ears. Edwin doesn't answer any of her inquiries. That well-worn blanket of anger settles onto her shoulders. She takes a deep breath.
First thing is to get out of this room, and as galling as it is, she'll need to follow the path laid out before her. Mini-Mihawk stays safely tucked away in her kimono this time though; it's going to be a bumpy ride where they're going.
"You'll be wantin' to take the door to your upper left!" Edwin's voice says once she's at the huge, circular room.
When she reaches the topmost level, she leans over the railing to stare down at the ship parts lying far below. The sight makes her insides twist. Her eyes move to the crane above her. It's very old, and there's a giant button labeled "Emergency Release."
With a glance to the door that will take her to Edwin, she considers her options.
She has two knives left that aren't for throwing. The rest of her blades are shuriken and distraction tools at best. Fighting in this state will be a losing battle; that damn diving suit is fast and strong with a long reach.
What she needs is Tsubasa de Tobu, but barring that, she'll take anything that can be swung with force.
"You took my wings, Edwin," she says darkly.
She rolls a shoulder and feels a pang at the loss. Broken as they were, they were hers. They were hers to say goodbye to, to get rid of.
"But I can still fly without them," she says before pulling herself up and onto the railing.
"The hell you doin'?" Edwin shouts, voice cracking into static.
Anger overrides the fear her precarious position causes. She pulls out a throwing knife with narrow eyes. There's no need for further boasting or prideful words. Either she makes it or she dies.
In one swift motion she throws the knife and jumps, hand held out towards the crane. The knife smashes into the button, and her fingers barely manage to wrap around the crane's hook before the whole thing begins falling.
Part by part, the crane grinds to halt, but she continues downward at a terrifying pace. Even though she manages to wrap both hands around the hook, the force of being jerked to stop nearly makes her let go.
She dangles there above the pile of ship parts, arms aching but still alive.
A pointy, broken bow of a ship stares up at her mockingly. Just a little more and she would have been skewered by it. She takes a steadying breath.
Right, time to get to work. Swinging her legs back and forth until she's got a good momentum, she lets go, falling towards a long, flat piece of wood. She hits her target with a roll.
"Divebelle, don't make me come down there!" Edwin's voice is still crackling with static.
"Come and get me then," she says, dusting herself off.
She must be angering him. Either that will work in her favor or against it. She's not exactly clear on the situation. Robin had said it wasn't just Edwin attacking them, but she hadn't sensed anyone in the corridor with them.
She looks around with a critical eye. If she's correct about Edwin dragging down ships before discarding them here, this will be her best chance to find a weapon.
Piece of wood, piece of wood, iron hinge—she'll have to roll up her sleeves and dig. She's not going to get her hopes up for a sword, but even a good piece of wood will do.
To her surprise, she does, in fact, find a sword. It's attached to a plaque though. Her stomach falls as she examines the blade. Decorative. Useless metal that will break after one use.
With her luck, this sword is probably the only thing she's going to find.
Her search eventually uncovers a small, round door in the wall; it's virtually unnoticeable even without being hidden beneath a pile of wood. An emergency hatch, perhaps? There's a lever in the center of it.
Making a quick decision, she pulls the lever, and the hatch opens with a rusty creak. She bends down to peer inside and is greeted by nothing but darkness.
Her actions are the last straw for Edwin. Garbled noise fills the room before cutting out ominously. A door opens in the distance followed by heavy stomping.
She looks around, attempting to memorize her surroundings for every advantage she can get. The fight's coming to her, which means the decorative sword is all she has. The blade is going to break no matter how she uses it, so she'll have to make the one strike count.
"It's coming."
She whirls to the opened hatch but finds no one there. The voice that just spoke came from inside; she's sure of it. She narrows her eyes and feels nothing.
"Through here. Hurry!"
The voice is faint and broken by static, but it's definitely coming from inside the hatch. Whoever it is sounds like a child.
She frowns as the heavy footsteps in the distance become rougher, louder. That's not Edwin. Whatever it is sounds even bigger somehow.
Staring at the hatch, she hesitates. It might be a trap. It's so small that she won't be able to do anything but crawl which will make her near helpless. But staying here might not be the best idea.
There's no time left for indecision. The footsteps now shake the metal walkways above her, and hostility prickles her skin. There's a sound of something big and sharp dragging on the ground with each footstep.
She really doesn't want to look up and find out what exactly is coming after her.
"Alright, fine." She quickly wraps the sword in a torn piece of sail; the blade is so dull that it can't cut through the cloth.
With the sword inserted awkwardly in her obi, she gets on her knees and crawls through the hatch, leaving behind the unknown creature in the circular room.
She can't see anything in this passageway; she can only blindly move forward, little by little. An ear-splitting shriek echoes around her, and she crawls faster as furious banging comes from somewhere behind her.
Whatever is after her can't fit through the hatch. It's just throwing a tantrum. She tries to keep her breathing even. She's faced worse, done worse. Keep moving.
The childish voice never speaks up again, and the only thing her hands ever touch is dirty, cold metal. Eventually her head bangs against solid metal, and she figures that's a good enough sign that she's reached the end.
Groping around, she somehow manages to get the door open. She pulls herself out and into an unlit room. She only knows she's in a room because the air isn't nearly as stuffy as the passageway.
She's getting very tired of being in the dark.
She tears off a piece of the sail cloth wrapped around the sword and lights it on fire. She holds it up to see—
Oh. It's a room full of skeletons.
She drops the cloth and it burns out, leaving her in the darkness once more. She tries to recall the scene briefly glimpsed. There's a table in the middle of the room—a chemical station, she thinks—and a whole bunch of dead people surrounding it.
There's some kind of burner—lamp?—on the table. If she can get to that, she might just have light. She'll figure out her plan of attack after.
She's proud to say she only kicks over one dead person in her quest to get to the chemical station. Unfortunately, there's a good bit of glass breaking once she starts patting the table blindly; she's decidedly less proud of that.
Lighting the burner-lamp thing is a relief even as it shows a gruesome view. She holds up the oil-based burner and surveys the room.
There's definitely been some kind of science done here. Chemical beakers, broken or filled with black sludge, pepper the room. On one wall is a bookcase full of damaged textbooks, and aquarium tanks, green and opaque, line another.
Most of the skeletons are even wearing lab coats.
She spies a leather journal in the hold of a skeleton slumped against a wall. It might be worth checking out. She gently slides the book out from skeletal fingers.
She opens the journal. She stares.
JON I'M SORRY
Well, considering that's the first page, she's off to a good start. She flips through the rest of the journal. Despite that riveting beginning, most of the book is filled with equations and reports that she can't make heads or tails of.
It's the final pages that give her a clue.
Pg. 32: You-know-who keeps breathing down our backs to hurry up and locate the DF85, but why is that so interesting when we're about to finally find a way to turn saltwater into fresh? Not that cheap filter stuff, but by the tankload!
Pg. 34: I went off on a rant just last night. Guess what showed up during the dive? You-know-who's going to be very happy. Whoop-de-doo. Now I owe Al my lone bottle of Finest Winest and Wes will never let me live it down.
Pg. 37: Something's gone wrong. We've been cut off for some reason. Those blasted government stooges just cut the line to the surface. We have no way back up. Should everything turn out fine, I'll rip this page out and eat it. EVERYTHING IS WRONG
Pg. 38: Our supplies are about to run out. Whatever the government did, we can't get the water or diving suits to work anymore. We're all going to die.
WE'RE DEAD I'M SORRY
Pg. 39: DF85 is now our only chance at survival. The thing is That Thing Is is that it's a bloody Devil Fruit. Only one of us can use it and live. We're trying to figure out if it's possible to replicate it somehow like a starfish or a plant. I want to hope. BUT I KNOW THE TRUTH
Pg. 40: Only one of us joined this mission without any other motive other than to see humans do the impossible. Al was using this to get in good with the government. Wes wanted to find new ways to kill Fish-men. And I was going to sell what I learned here to the highest buyer.
Jon, if anyone deserves to live, it's you, you nutcase.
I DIDN'T KNOW I'M SORRY
She places the journal back into the arms of the skeleton, taking care not to break anything. There's nothing else of interest in this room. All the scalpels are dull and rusted over; she's more likely to hurt herself with them than anything else.
Still, a Devil Fruit. What power has Edwin been using? Was it that pressure that knocked her out? Or is it something to do with sound? She just doesn't have enough information to make a conclusion.
She has a more pressing worry anyway. She hasn't exactly put that much distance between her and that thing. It'd be nice if she could regroup with the Straw Hats before she's discovered.
(One really should be careful about what they wish for.)
She doesn't take two steps out the door before she's tackled. It takes a skillful kind of flailing to keep the burner from slipping out of her hands or to keep from setting something on fire.
"Found you, Wado!" Rubbery arms wrap around her shoulders in a parody of a hug.
"Luffy?"
She moves the burner to get a better look, and sure enough, there's that straw hat and wide grin. She glances around him and sees nothing else.
"You're alone?" She asks, trying to stifle her despair.
Is this divine punishment? She loses her sword, her wings, her friend, and now this. Literally any other Straw Hat pirate would have been better.
As if to spite her, there's a sudden ear-splitting shriek that rattles her teeth. Heavy footsteps shake the corridor while the sound of something big and sharp drags against the metal floor.
"Guess not! Looks like that guy found us too," Luffy says, grin growing sharp around the edges.
Luffy lets go and begins rolling an arm as if to stretch. She has the sudden realization that the only light they have is the burner in her hands. Their ring of light is only enough to see what's immediately in front of them.
The stomping and scraping of metal on metal grows ever louder. Luffy bounces on his toes as she works to keep her breathing even.
She could run back to the circular room, giving Luffy the ultimatum to follow after her or fight in the dark alone. But she knows he won't run. Not without Nami here to scream at him.
Luffy is not her captain. Abandoning him wouldn't cause her to lose sleep. If Zoro really is dead, then she has no further desire to keep his captain alive.
She takes out a knife—one left, she notes grimly—and adjusts the burner so she can safely move with it.
As much as she hates to admit it, Luffy is incredibly strong; she felt it when they fought Moria together. Her best chance of defeating this thing for good is right here. Leaving now is a detriment to her continued existence.
You confuse honor with guilt and then try to deny both.
She can feel the walls shaking before a large, misshapen boot steps into the ring of light. She tenses. A glove with spikes sprouting from its palm comes next. The other boot steps forward as a large blade drags behind it.
"This is where Usopp would scream," Luffy muses, head tilting.
The thing making the unholy noise finally steps into the light fully. Her eyes go to the large blade first; it's more a hunk of metal than an actual weapon, but it's sturdy. She figures it could behead her easily enough.
"You know, I kind of want to scream too." She looks up at the fishbowl-shaped helmet full of liquid and blinking eyes. "Shit."
